Week 4: Sippin' that Tennessee Honey

In a typical year, we'd be in the midst of the August doldrums, marked by slow days for birds in the nets and much napping (I mean...obs). While there were echoes of these with a couple of quite slow days at Pedder, migration seems to have started early this year and we were treated to several busy days this week!

The nets were slow and steady to begin the week, then on the 13th Ashlea and I spent the morning running around, as we ended the morning with 63 total birds with no extractors! Pedder went back to slow and steady after that while Rocky stayed relatively hot, ending the week with a solid 76-bird day. At the end of week four, we are almost 300 birds ahead of last year at this time.

A very pale young Warbling Vireo (Siobhan Darlington)

Top captures this week at Rocky were Pacific-slope and Willow flycatchers, White-crowned Sparrow, Warbling Vireo and Orange-crowned Warbler. The latter had quite a high proportion of the interior 'Gray-headed' subspecies group; hopefully a sign of more interior rarities to come! New captures for the season there were Golden-crowned Kinglet and Lincoln's Sparrow. Pedder was led by White-crowned Sparrow, Willow Flycatcher and Wilson's Warbler, while the only new capture for the season was a Brown-headed Cowbird. An interesting recapture came in the form of an old female "Oregon" Dark-eyed Junco on the 12th, in net 11 at Pedder. She was originally banded in August 2012 here, and caught in the same net! This is the first time we have seen her since then. The rarity of the week came on the 16th, when we caught a hatch-year Tennessee Warbler in net 1 at Rocky! This is only the second banding record for RPBO; the previous one was in September 2006.

Tennessee Warbler (David Bell)

Pacific (left) and Gray-headed (centre) Orange-crowned warblers providing a nice comparison to the Tennessee Warbler (right) (David Bell)

7-year-old recap "Oregon" Junco (David Bell)

With migration picking up, we are getting new arrivals almost daily on census and obs. Arrivals at Rocky this week included Wilson's Snipe, Northern Harrier, Surf Scoter, Horned Grebe and a couple of early American Pipits, while an Eastern Kingbird was a census highlight on the 14th. Arrivals at Pedder included Vaux's Swift, Savannah Sparrow, Sharp-shinned Hawk and what might be the first Whimbrel recorded there (a flyover on the 12th).

Eastern Kingbird (David Bell)

Non-avian observations were a little slim this week, although the wolves seem to be getting more active and we heard them on multiple mornings from both stations. Still no sightings though! Daily groups of River Otters at Rocky and the omnipresent and ever-entertaining Black-tailed Deer at Pedder, along with some fishing Raccoons at both stations rounded out the mammal section.

Ashlea with her first hummingbird (Siobhan Darlington)

Thanks again to all of the volunteers who came out this week! Still plenty of gaps for the upcoming weeks, especially for census and extractors. We'd also like to congratulate Mark and Robin Byrne for getting their extractor status this week!

Townsend's Warbler (Siobhan Darlington)

Rocky Point	Aug 11th	Aug 12th	Aug 13th	Aug 14th	Aug 15th	Aug 16th	Aug 17th	Total
Banded	36	23	33	39	29	28	66	254
Species banded	13	14	15	13	12	14	16	31
Recap	8	4	7	7	7	7	10	50
Species recap	5	4	3	3	3	3	4	11

Pedder Bay	Aug 11th	Aug 12th	Aug 13th	Aug 14th	Aug 15th	Aug 16th	Aug 17th	Total
Banded	24	24	53	23	11	14	30	179
Species banded	14	16	15	13	8	7	12	25
Recap	10	8	10	6	7	3	6	50
Species recap	5	8	5	4	5	3	4	12

(Week 4 numbers - click to see full size)

"Gray-headed" Orange-crowned Warbler (Ashlea Veldhoen)

Week 3 : Pedder is better

RBNU (Siobhan D.)

Hello RPBO lovers, here we are. It’s my turn to tell you about the third week of the season. And what a week! We have already gotten a good amount of bird species and numbers so far this year. It's always a delight to see beautiful colourful birds in hand such as this Red-Breasted Nuthatch (RBNU) caught at Rocky Point this week. 

YEWA (Siobhan D.)

Some people are saying “Pedder is better”. You have to judge for yourself! But I can tell you that every morning, we've been hearing and seen the display of a few individuals of Common Nighthawk. A couple of hours later, it's the time for swallows and Purple Martin to fly over the sation. And if it's slow for banding, you can fill your mug with coffee between two net round ! 

Some days banding has even been busier at Pedder Bay and this week, we’ve been adding to the PB list some nice firsts of the year for banding such as Golden Crowned Kinglet (GCKI), European Starling (EUST), and Northern Flicker (NOFL). At Rocky Point, we've banded 2 Marsh Wren (MAWR) which is a first of the year and a banding tick for Siobhan. On average, Rocky Point remains the place where we got more birds banded per day (around 30) while at Pedder Bay, the average is 20 new individuals banded. Yellow warblers (YEWA) have arrived in good numbers at both stations and this week, we've also banded a SY ♂ Black-headed grosbeack (BHGR) and one SY ♂ Western Tanager (WETA). Those two nice looking birds where banded at Pedder Bay...

Rae-Ann & Dave @ Pedder Bay (Donna Talluto)

Grey headed OCWA (Siobhan D.)

Another subspecies of Orange Crowned warbler (OCWA) has arrived. You can distinguish them from the ones who breed here by their grey head. Those guys were breeding in Alaska and they are now passing through. Did you know that there is actually 4 sub-species of OCWA in North America ? They differ in plumage color, size and molt patern.

Siobhan spotted a leucistic Warbling Vireo at Rocky Point. A leucistic bird is the result of an abnormal sequence of DNA. Have you already seen a leucistic bird ? Sometime one has a white patch due to a lack of melanine. 

LEGO (David Bell)

Dave found a Lesser Goldfinch (LEGO) hanging out with the American Goldfinches at RP. He first spotted it because of the unusual song he heard. The nonbreeding individuals are quite alike when you compare both species. To give you a few tips, the Lesser Goldfinch is smaller and has a white patch at the base of the primaries. Another feature that can help in the field is the undertail coverts which tend to be more yellow than our usual goldfinch which have white undertail coverts.

Jannaca continues her collection of bird pictures. She is particularly interested in the differences in the Brown Creeper juveniles and adults. So we take different measurements as the bill length, the size of the white patch in the wing, the tail length, etc. She is also trying to document our western species for the Piranga website*. We are enjoying taking pictures with Ann N.’s new invention. If you didn’t see it yet, it’s another good reason to come volunteer at RP. Every year, Ann comes up with new inventions. You never know what’s next !

* Wanna check this website full of informations before banding ? 

Here is the link you need https://www.natureinstruct.org/piranga/view.php/Canada/1B2A6386D509137D

Merlin (Siobhan D.)

A Merlin has been seen a couple of time this week at RP. 

Rocky Point is also the place to be if you wanna seawatch early in the morning. Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled Murrelet, Rhinoceros Auklet, Common Murre, Black Oysterchatcher were at the rendezvous this week !

You might wonder, what do the banders do after banding? No doubt they go birding, go for a swim or have a nap after a long day at the station. Yes, these are all true but this week, some of us also rescued a juvenile Turkey Vulture (TUVU) not feeling well on the side of the road, someone had to run after an escaped calf and, another person even did photoshoot of a kitten! I won’t tell you who was playing with cats - you would be surprised ;-) It’s a fun life!  

Rebecca rescuing a TUVU

So while I was waiting at Matheson lake. Here is what happened with that "lucky" TUVU one afternoon after banding.

"Siobhan spotted him from the road and then Mitchell and I jumped out and tracked him down to the brambles near the swampy section while Siobhan went to get Dave. He was super fast on foot but couldn’t fly. It took all four of us to catch him. Eventually we cornered him in the brambles. Then a short car ride to wildarc! So far so good."

Rebecca Golat - Bander intern

Even though it's a bit exhausting sometime, I won’t swap my job for anything else that’s for sure. I’m really grateful to get this opportunity to work again with RPBO. Thank you to all the volunteers and I’m looking forward to seeing you soon at Rocky Point or Pedder…  

Donna Talluto - Senior Bander

Pedder Bay	Aug 4	Aug 5	Aug 6	Aug 7	Aug 8	Aug 9	Aug 10	Total
Banded	20	14	19	17	20	36	18	144
Sp. Banded	13	9	13	11	10	17	13	33
Recapted	4	4	5	10	6	7	7	43
Sp. Recapted	2	4	4	8	5	6	6	13
Rocky Point	Aug 4	Aug 5	Aug 6	Aug 7	Aug 8	Aug 9	Aug 10	Total
Banded	17	30	22	30	40	32	42	213
Sp. Banded	10	13	11	12	16	13	16	32
Recapted	7	10	4	2	12	4	10	49
Sp. Recapted	5	5	3	2	8	3	4	15